


The Box

by Magical_Awesome_Kid



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Yes there are wisps and blobs, adorableness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24992185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magical_Awesome_Kid/pseuds/Magical_Awesome_Kid
Summary: Danny Fenton is a 14-year-old boy who has had a less-than-ordinary life. As far as his life, or half-life, craziness has gone, this is on par for the course.It's also oddly comforting. Stop taking pictures, Tucker!
Comments: 20
Kudos: 110





	The Box

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fic in a while, but, well, Danny Phantom is just one of those fandoms :D
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

It had started, much like many of his parents’ inventions did, with an idea to trap ghosts. Now, this one, for obvious reasons, was originally from his father. The Fenton Carrot, as he had been calling it. In the colors of many of their inventions was this odd box that glowed slightly, giving off a soft hum as it sat on the desk of the lab. It was obvious that the Fenton Patriarch had been taking a page from Danny’s book, doing too much and having been watching cartoons when trying to work when he’d gotten the wacky idea.

It was a simple enough concept. Much like the old cartoons, the box would be propped open with a build-in ‘stick’ that could be activated with a button to drop. Since the parents didn’t know what would act as a carrot, as they believed (somewhat wrongly – it really depended on the ghost) that ghosts did not require food and did not take pleasure from it, they had to experiment. They analyzed the wavelengths given off by many ghosts and instead created a sort of ‘siren’s tune,’ as they thought it would sound like if there was a human equivalent. The idea was that the ghost would be attracted to the rather large box – easily seven feet along each side of the top and four feet deep – and, once the trap sprung, the anti-phasing walls would prevent escape. It even came with a button to downsize for easy travel. Ghosts really didn’t have much in the form of strategizing beyond obsession (again, wrong, but the parents didn’t know), so they thought this simple trap would work wonders.

There was one big flaw though, as they discovered in their first field test (one which they had dragged Danny and Jazz to). See, while the walls of the box were anti-phase proof, the ground below, well… not so much. In fact, Cujo, the adorable rascal, had stumbled through a portal just before this, and, of course, got trapped in the box. Following the initial cheer of the parents and the worry of the two teens, Cujo phased up from the ground next to the box before running off. Danny had to play the distraction, getting Cujo back to the Ghost Zone, before his parents caused even MORE chaos, but Jazz, who had listened to the lecture, shrunk it down, picked it up, and put it in her backpack. The parents ended up scrapping the idea later, mostly due to new ones popping up, but Jazz still had the odd box.

“Can I keep this?” Danny said, sometime later to his older sister. Until that moment, it had been thrown in the back of her car, forgotten. Jazz had been driving that day because Danny needed a nap on the way to school (ghost fighting a lot the night before).

Jazz glanced as Danny fished the Fenton Carrot from the back seat, which was now shrunk to no bigger than a shoebox. “Uh… sure. It’s that box thing that mom and dad made, but it, you know, doesn’t have a lid.”

Danny held it up to his ear like it was a conch shell. “Yeah, that worked out well.” He snorted. “But, like, it’s got a really soothing sound to it? Feels warm, but, not, like, warm.”

They were pulling up to a stop light, so, of course, Jazz had to hold it to her ear. She could feel and hear the faint hum that came off of most of the activated Fenton inventions, but she couldn’t really hear or feel anything otherwise. “I’m not getting the same feel. Is it a ghost thing?”

Danny shrugged as he took back the box. “Maybe. It just sounds, like, maybe a lullaby? I remember mom and dad saying it was a siren song thing, but I think they missed the mark slightly.”

“I think this whole thing missed the mark slightly.” Jazz joked.

“Not out of the ordinary.”

Jazz then proceeded to forget about the box, again, for a number of days. Between school, college prep, and helping his brother with his life, it was easy to forget one invention of the many that their parents made. One day, though, while working on her own Amity Park Ghost flashcards (she wanted to know everything), she came across an odd sight.

“Hey, Danny, can you check this card I have? It says a ghost lives in the locker at your school?” Jazz asked as she came in. Her parents were out getting parts, and there hadn’t been secrets between the siblings for a while. Besides, Danny always locked his door if he really needed privacy.

She paused as she came in. The bed was stripped of its pillows and blankets and, pushed off to the side where the sunlight wouldn’t reach, the Fenton Carrot was set up.

Except it was upside down, and there was a blanket pulled over the top like a cover.

Jazz stepped closer, feeling like there was something major inside, but, as she lifted the cover, there was a minor ‘hiss’ within.

“Put it back.” She found her little brother inside, curled up with his pillows and blankets.

“Danny? What are you doing in here?”

“Napping.” He groaned, sitting up. His head skidded across where there was a dip in the blanket cover. “It’s cozy in here, and the lullaby puts me to sleep.”

Jazz lifted an eyebrow. “Oh… Kay…? I guess I can leave you to it?”

“Sweet. Night Jazz.” With that, Danny took the cover from her hand, dropped it back into place, and fell back into his little nest of pillows within.

When Sam and Tucker had heard about it from Jazz, they were more concerned about finding ‘I fits I sits’ memes then Danny’s health. In all honesty, fair, because Danny totally acted like a cat when he got his box all set up. Even when there was nothing in there, or it wasn’t at full size, the teen loved napping within. He said it made him feel calm, but not in an ‘I will never get out’ kind of way but ‘I’m under a blanket’ kind of way. For Jazz’s sanity, they ran some tests with actual ghost data to compare it to, and, sure enough, the vibrations in the box correlated to what was essentially ocean wave sounds in the Ghost Zone. It was background sounds, which were under the threshold for human hearing, but were just at the level Ghosts could be lulled with. Utterly harmless, except that, well… tired ghosts were attracted a plenty.

Now, it was never powerful ghosts, because most of those stayed in the ghost zone when low on energy, but Danny had woken up a number of times surrounded by little ectoplasmic blob ghosts, small nature spirits, will-o-wisps, and other very weak and vaguely sentient ghosts that inhabited the larger material world, whom had swept in and out through natural portals for thousands of years and, in general, were harmless. It seemed they all liked that, even in slumber, they couldn’t sink through walls and could get all cozy with one another.

Danny had freaked the first few times it happened, but, later, he realized that he slept even better with them there. Soon enough, Danny was looking more refreshed, better slept, with the help of his box and his snuggly ghosts.

His friends made jokes about how ‘Danny the Cat’ was being, well, a fussy cat. It didn’t help that his ghostly tail liked to wiggle faster when he focused on something he liked, or that his eyes grew easily when they saw something enjoyable, but he still ACTED human, thank you very much TUCKER! Sam had gifted him cat toys at one point, which he gave to the blobs, who ate them, but it was the thought that counted. Jazz was just glad that her brother looked like he’d slept through the night, even if he’d only gotten two hours in his little box.

Danny, for his part, loved his portable nap container. Sure, there was no lid, but he honestly preferred it that way. He hated feeling trapped, and the box’s size would have bordered on “is this ok or am I about to have a freak out” if not for the open lid. At night, when he couldn’t sleep in bed, he’d set up the box, look up at his glow-in-the-dark stars that attached to his ceiling, and listen to the hums of a peaceful Ghost Zone.

Maybe he also loved the idea of digging back into his youth, when box castles were cool and nothing could hurt him in his little self-made fort.

In the meantime, though, he felt a blob flop onto his stomach over the blanket he’d pulled in, and the light of a few will-o-wisps bounced off the ceiling, their soft blues and deep purples adding to the feeling that the stars above weren’t just stickers but bits of space brought down to Earth. He scratched the blob on his belly, who began to purr, and Danny felt his eyes grow heavy.

The ghost boy drifted into a peaceful sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Danny is a cat who needs cuddles. Let me throw all the adorable ghosty cuddles at him.
> 
> Also forts. Can't go wrong with forts.


End file.
